What are the possibilities for powering an amp with AC power, such as what you would plug into the wall in your home

None really - they are 12V DC amplifiers - if you want to use one in your home, you can try something like a PC power supply that outputs 12V (along with 5V and I think 3.3V), but you need a very powerful one (or fairly small car amp) to supply the type of current that car amps typically draw.

There are also commercial 12V DC power supplies that would work, but likely cost more than a good home receiver.

What are you trying to do, BTW? 

What I want to do is make a custom iPod dock of sorts. like the portable speakers available. i wanted to use an 8" JL w3 with two evolution VR's on either side, with some sort of iPod connectivity still be and relativly portable. is this possible?

Do you already have those speakers? 

Okay, I can see several way to go with this, but not sure which would be cleanest/easiest - I'll throw some ideas out here and someone else please chime in:

• What you were thinking of - something like a 4-channel car amp with the front channels driving the VR's and the rear bridged to the sub.  Problem here is powering it off of AC - not sure a PC power supply would be up to it, perhaps you could use something like a lawnmower battery with an AC charger, but not sure you want to be transporting a lead-acid battery around either.
• The smallest boombox/shelf radio you can find with an aux port - but you would want to match the power output to your speakers, and you might need two speakers per channel in series to get the impedance where it needs to be.
• Perhaps taking an existing portable Ipod dock and simply wiring the evolution speakers in place of the speakers that come with it - but I don't think it would be able to drive the JL subwoofer.
• Perhaps getting a good set of AC powered computer speakers like the Logitech 5.1's or the Bose Acoustimass and connecting them via the iPod's headphone output (I think you can do that).

Anyone else have any ideas on this? 

I dont already have them but these are the ideal speakers i'd like to use,

 the lawnmower battery eliminates the portablility, it doesn't exactly need to be iPod dock portable, but boombox portable.

that is exactly what i wanted to do though in terms of a 4 channel amp.

what kind of PC power supply would be enough?

This one has 1 x 12V (8Pin) and 1 x 12V (P4) connections, and is 520 watts. the highest watt I could find was 600.

 

Okay, I have never done this and I'm not crazy about the idea, so all my advice comes without any warranty whatsover, I think it will work, but I can't swear by it, and don't blame me if you have problems from it. 

Weber:

what kind of PC power supply would be enough? This one has 1 x 12V (8Pin) and 1 x 12V (P4) connections, and is 520 watts. the highest watt I could find was 600.

It's not the wattage, it's the amperage on the 12V rails.

Let's say you use a 50Wx4 amp for all this - according to this calculator, that will draw 29A at clipping.  The Power supply you selected is 18A on each of the 12V rails (it has two), so 36A total, so you would want to connect some of the power plugs together to run out to power your car amplifier.  (And I don't remember if it's the red and the black wires or the yellow and the black wires, but a Google search should get you that info.)

Hope This Helps!!!! 

More thoughts -

Normally, when this type of question comes up on the forum (and it has a couple of times in the past), it's kids thinking that they have a 200W amp so they can buy a 200W PC power supply for $20 (or $5 used) and be all set.

If you aren't balking at a $115 PC power supply there are some other things you should look into, although I don't know a good source for them.

• You might be able to find a dedicated 12V power supply that would provide more power or be more reasonable since it is only worried about 12V not 5V or 3.3V also.  I would look for 120V AC - 12VDC power supply (or just 12VDC power supply), also I believe the actual component is a transformer-rectifier, but I don't know if that would show anything in a search.
• Someone might make an AC amp that would do what you want - for example - this product by a company that Daniel previously recommended is pretty close.  (I haven't looked through their whole site, and the power is less than we were talking about, but remember that this is both the car amp and the PC power supply in one enclosure, so it eliminates both those components.)
• If you shop carefully on the PC power supplies you might find a more reasonable one that produces more power on the 12V rails and not as much on the 5V and 3.3V - you also might be able to "gang" a pair of less expensive PC power supplies together, but I can't say that for sure.

Hope This Helps!!!! (Anyone else have any suggestions)?

On a power supply, can you wire two or more rails together? What I mean by this is if you had a power supply that had 4 +12V rails, and each are rated by the manufacturer at 25A. If you wired all four positives together to the positive terminal on the amp, and all 4 negatives together on the neg terminal, would you get 100A? or would the combined output be the same. I'm very interested on how this could work...

nphilanthro:

On a power supply, can you wire two or more rails together?

I believe so, but I'm not sure of this - never tried it - haven't read of anyone else trying it. 

What I mean by this is if you had a power supply that had 4 +12V rails, and each are rated by the manufacturer at 25A. If you wired all four positives together to the positive terminal on the amp, and all 4 negatives together on the neg terminal, would you get 100A?

I believe you get 100A of capacity.  The amp will draw what it needs - so the example amp above would draw 29A whether it had 36A or 100A available - but a larger amp that drew 50A would be good with your supply and not with the one we discussed above.

But again, that's my understanding of this which might not be worth much ...

I am going to be trying this really soon. I've got a Solo Baric L5 10" in my room that I currently run off of my Phillips FW-C577 boombox thing. The boom box puts out around 165 watts RMS @ 6 ohms into the channel i have the sub wired to. It is a 4 ohm dvc, so i have it wired in series which means it is running at 8 ohms. So the boombox is maybe giving it like 120 watts RMS? The sub is rated at 450 watts RMS. It doesn't really start to perform at all until the volume is around 30+ out of 40.

I have an older computer that I am going to take the power supply out of, and see if it will power my RF Power 350S. If it does, then I will be getting a beefier (~500 watt) power supply that will adequately power it. 

I've done a bit of research, and it should work. You can connect the rails together, and their amperages will add to each other. For power supplies that don't have an on off switch, you want to take the big 20 pin connector and connect the green and black wires together. There is only one green wire, and any black wire will work. This will turn the power supply on.

I should have this all done by next weekend hopefully, so I will post and let you guys know how it goes. 

nphilanthro:

You can connect the rails together, and their amperages will add to each other.

Are you pretty confident of this?  I asked a friend who designs electronic circuits and he didn't think it would work, but he wasn't sure about it.

Ideally, I'd prefer you to test this with an old power supply and a meter and see what happens (carefully), before powering anything up to it. 

For power supplies that don't have an on off switch, you want to take the big 20 pin connector and connect the green and black wires together. There is only one green wire, and any black wire will work. This will turn the power supply on.

I am not sure that all power supplies use the same color coding.  It would probably be better to research the 20-pin connector and find out what the affected pin numbers are.  It would also probably be good to wire a switch to these pins so you could turn it on and off with the switch, but not a hard requirement.  (Most PS's have switches now anyway). 

I should have this all done by next weekend hopefully, so I will post and let you guys know how it goes.

Please do!!! 

well tis product should supply your amp with all the power it needs. they make them in a variety of sizes for various prices

Switch Mode AC to DC Converter with 40 Amp maximum output

$175.12

Progressive Dynamics 9100 Series INTELI-POWER